A Footnote Solved

One mystery person mentioned in my decades-long series of Footnotes:

The one scene below from the 1988 documentary Imagine I never seem to miss is when some hippie wanders up to John Lennon's house, and instead of releasing the hounds Lennon not only talks to him but invites him in to eat!

Who the fuck is this guy? Is he alive? He's probably about 60 now. Has anyone ever found out who this guy is? Wouldn't it be great to ask "what was it like to find yourself sitting at a kitchen table eating toast with one  of the goddam Beatles?"?

Turns out we know who this guy is: American Curt Claudio:

John: I had this guy called Claudio who had been sending telegrams for nine months to England saying ‘I’m coming, I’m coming and then I’ll only have to look in your eyes and I’ll know.’

Dan Richter: We began to take Claudio seriously and we were able to trace the telegram back to a Veterans Administration hospital in the San Francisco area. Apparently Claudio was a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran who was due to be released from the hospital.

John: So last week he turned up at my house and he looked in my eyes and he didn’t get any answer. He thought the whole thing was about him and I said, ‘No, it’s about me.’ It might strike a corresponding chord in your experience because we all have similar experiences but it’s basically about me and if it’s not about me, it’s about Yoko. I said. ‘You better get on and live your own life, you’re wasting your time trying to live mine.’

Dan Richter: John had a really special way with people. He also had a very honest, vulnerable quality, which always made me worry for him. It was part of the key to and price of his success.

UPDATE: if I'd read the article to the end I woulda learned he died in 1981:

He spent most of his life working on farms. We worked at Ford Motors in Milpitas, California until they closed the factory. Ford gave their employees $12,000 so could re-train for another job. I asked Curt, “What are you going to do with your $12,000?” Curt said, “I’m either going to buy a Harley or an ultra-light airplane.”

He bought the ultra-light and that’s what killed him. He was flying too low and too slow and the plane stalled. It happened in Fremont, California. The plane came down, bounced off a carport roof, and landed in a tree, six feet off the ground. The high impact caused his aorta to separate from the heart. Death was instantaneous.